


Trinity

by Gildedmuse



Category: Rent (2005), Rent - Larson
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, HIV/AIDS, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Short One Shot, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 02:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18729901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: It's just so happens, you can always find someone else to love you.





	Trinity

**Author's Note:**

> [Posted in 2006 to LJ]

**Trinity**

 

“Roger…”

 

In barrooms covered in smoke and piss, Roger hears angels. The bass and drums pound beat pound behind him, playing Ava Maria or Sex Drive, who can tell? In a sea of pilgrims is his own Holy Virgin Mary looking like a Jezebel punk with smeared lipstick and faded colors in her once dark hair. Her only miracle can be bought in alleyways and parks.

 

All she has to do is whisper his name and he floats off stage to her. The cold pinch of a needle to his arm brings God right into his system. Her thighs like fresh holy relics, her mouth hot wet. The first time Adam got to properly fuck Eve, that is what every time with April feels like. A new sin being born in backstages and bathrooms.

 

New York can suck the soul right out of a young musician, but never April. She saves him with her holy holy heroin body. His guitar and her wicked smile are all that stand between Roger and hell. April is a blessing drug, giving Roger exactly enough to save him. Then with the high of the audience and the man’s product flowing through his spirit, April completes the trinity, crawling up onto his lap and hiking up her skirt. She rubs against his cock, nails leaving the marks of beasts on his shoulder blades, creeping down his back as testaments of his faith. No clothes have to be taken off, she just fucks herself down against him, and Roger chants her name like a pagan prayer while April whispers, “Roger, fuck me.”

 

“Roger, hurt me.”

 

“Roger, wake up.”

 

Everyday starts off the same now, and Roger keeps it that way by answering the same. NogoawayIdon’twanttoIhateyougetawayfromme. He’s worse than a child being dragged out of bed for school, throwing a fit and burying himself beneath the covers to hide from Mother Mark.

 

Not put-off by Roger’s show, Mark comes in every time.

 

A glass of water is placed beside two hundred others sitting in stale pools as they are each rejected. No, he won‘t drink, he‘d rather die. Wants to die. It will be easier to die of thirst, just the lack of doing anything at all to save himself. “I brought you something to eat,” Mark says, and holds out a bowl of whatever it is they can afford, waving the food in front of Roger’s face until the smell makes him sick.

 

Or maybe that’s the withdrawals. Maybe that’s the HIV April left in her place.

 

He’s fallen and he’s mad, but he can’t say why. He throws fits and plates and his fists and never really says a word. He kicks, screams, shoves Mark away from all the anger building up in his veins in place of Miracles, something that feels a lot like guilt twisting up in his head.

 

He’s mad about diseases, death, April’s parents for being so fucking right about him. Because he is stuck being nothing - not human and not even a demon, not a boy at all without the girl in his music. Mad because she left and took his drugs with her.

 

Hail Mary, full of diseases and wickedness. Fuck you.

 

So instead of getting high he screams and spits in Mark’s face. For not loving him enough to get him more, bring him something to ease him through. She’s gone, it’s gone, Roger has fallen.

 

Mother Mark, patron saint of abused love says, “No.” He puts up with the bruises and fits because that is what mothers do, and Mark suffers so well. “You’ll get through this,” he promises, and stays stays stays until Roger grows up.

 

He says, “You’re going to make it.”

 

Mimi’s face isn’t so much beautiful as it is a mirror. Heroin and HIV have a way at eating at youth, snacking on whole bodies at a time and leaving only dark lines, gaunt cheeks, wild in need eyes. No, it isn’t so much beautiful, but Roger stares constantly. Mimi is the resurrection of the girl who died for Roger’s sins.

 

Her cough, her laugh, the stigmatas that cover her arms in little bumps all belonged to April first. Roger is at once stricken, angry, sympathetic, needy, jealous, in love.

 

Mimi smiles that same smile Roger remembers from before, only missing something now. Heroin leaves an unmistakable sort of smile. “Stay until you’re sure?” She asks and coughs sobs coughs even while trying to keep up that Holy smile of hers, so it’s all Roger can do to just hold her and keep the demons back a while longer. They seem attracted to his little false idol.

 

“We need a doctor, that’s all.” Doctors take money, more than even a little needle filled with sin and diseases. Not even the ever absent Collins can afford them a miracle this late. Roger knows better than to believe in something as impossible as doctors, but Mimi should keep the faith. Maybe, after all, Roger is right. All she needs is a doctor, and Mimi will be fine, she’ll make it like April never got the chance, and maybe Roger hasn’t lied to her.

 

Sitting up in the loft with this tiny golden statue of a broken girl in his arms, Roger can’t keep his eyes off the bathroom door. Why would she give him the chance to save her in this sad and broken form, when Mimi couldn’t be saved?

 

Mimi sighs a stolen sigh, torn from April’s throat too early. She leans against Roger’s chest, so tiny he can barely keep his arms properly around her.

 

“I love you,” gets whispered, but Roger can’t answer.

 

“I love you,” Mark repeats, a little lost Jewish boy who accidentally wondered into a confession.

 

Roger tries to open his eyes but, God, it burns so bad. Light, any light even in the darkness of his bedroom, stings at the lumps forming over and in his eyes. He gives up, leaving them closed and refusing to look up at Mark.

 

“How’re you feeling?’ He asks, and because he knows better than to wait for no answer, he keeps going. “Do you need anything?”

 

Yes, please, please God. Holy Father who art in Heaven, give this boy one more chance. At least let him look at Mark, let him move. Holy father, take away the pain and let him touch something that won’t die.

 

The loft is turning into Saint Mark’s hospital with a body count of two and rising, waiting on Roger. Mimi and April never got that second chance, why would the boy who killed them.

 

Mother Mark, patron saint of witnessing the suffering, presses some liquid to Roger’s lips and changes out his soiled blankets. Roger hasn’t been able to move from this bed in a week long eternity, and before that it seemed he could only make it so far as to fall on his knees. Mark has plenty of time to learn how to do all of this without a breath or a word over Roger’s body.

 

“I brought something.” Mark takes Roger’s hand. Bedsores and lesions don’t bother him anymore. He doesn’t twitch away like he use to, but twists their fingers together and holds onto Roger, assure him that he’s only in limbo a while longer.

 

Roger opens his mouth, dry and scarred so that they bleed when he tries to speak. Mother Mark, Holy Mark, any angel or God out there. It hurts so much, worse than withdrawals and worse than all the funereal. Roger has never been a martyr.

 

“Mar…”

 

Half blind, Roger still knows what the blur of a needle full of heroin looks like. Flesh never forgets the sin, it still awakens at the feeling of a cold needle against his arm. Burning, everything hurts with pus and sickness dripping off him. “Hold still,” Mark tells him, but Roger hasn’t moved in weeks. The cool slide of metal into his arms, against his veins. It’s way too full, too much junk that flashes through him. Just enough to save him.

 

Patron saint of endings.

 

A religious experience, coursing up through him, powerful and dulling. Swims through his veins so that the virus can’t and kills the hurt, the pain, the boy until Roger can’t feel his body or the lesions of Mark’s lips against the corner of his mouth anymore.


End file.
